


love is

by pandoracorn



Series: DR Birthdays 2018 [7]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M, did you really think i was going to let them be happy twice? NOPE, dr1 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 15:35:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13593108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandoracorn/pseuds/pandoracorn
Summary: Puppy love is hard to ignore // When every little thing you do, I do adore--Naegi thought he knew what being in love felt like.





	love is

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little bit late but!! Happy birthday Egg!!
> 
> of course it's another leonaegi piece. and also of course i've already used up my fluff quota.
> 
> :)c

“Leon Kuwata.”

His tone was so dismissive that Naegi could tell he didn’t want to be here. Though that made no sense… the school was by choice, so…

“Makoto Naegi.” He chose not to bring it up and responded in kind, holding his hand out for a handshake… only to receive a fist into it, like a failed fistbump. He looked up in confusion, watching the redhead grin.

“Listen dude, I’m not one for formalities. Keep it casual, a’ight?”

“R-right, got it. Casual.” Needless to say, that was going to be difficult.

“What’s up, you feelin’ outclassed here?”

Hit the nail on the head. Naegi almost winced - was he that transparent? “...Yeah.”

A short laugh, before he began leaning back onto the back legs of his chair, resting his legs on the desk. “Don’t sweat it. Once this all kicks off, we’re not gonna give a damn about each other, ‘cos we’re only here for ourselves.”

“...Oh.” Honestly? That was what he wasn’t hoping for. He was hoping to make friends, to grow and learn and-

“Of course, that, uh, doesn’t mean we’re not gonna, like… hang out and shit, right?” Quickly correcting himself, almost stumbling over his thoughts and losing the cool persona he was originally giving off, Leon lost his balance on the chair for a moment before sitting upright, legs on the floor. “You seem… cool. A little uptight but, that’s just the nerves, right? Naegi, huh?”

“Yep, that’s me.”

“Loosen your shoulders. Chill out. I’m not gonna come back and bite ya in the ass, am I?”

Naegi watched as Leon chuckled at his own joke, even laughing along with him ever so slightly, with a smile on his face, feeling the butterflies in his stomach melting away at the realisation that maybe, just maybe, he’d made friends with a sports star.

 

(love is meeting your crush for the first time and knowing they were the one)

—

Alright. No more running away. It’s been two months, he knew the guy well enough to make this work… despite getting flustered so many times before. But not this time - no, this time was the one.

“Kuwata-kun!” Naegi shouted with self-asserted vigour, some of which dissipated once he saw the all-star actually turn around to face him. “Can I, uh, talk to you for a sec?”

Leon paused where he was walking and slid his hands into his jeans, instinctively leaning against the wall in an idle state while he watched the other boy make his way over, with his hands behind his back. “What you need? What’s that?”

“Oh, uh,” Naegi looked behind him for a moment, rubbing his thumbs on the paper he held in his hands as he rocked from heel to toe where he stood. “These? Are, uh… for…”

“You’re kinda mumblin’ there, dude.”

“Oh, uh, I… I know- just, uh,” Code red, he couldn’t get the words out - after all the money he’d spent on this too. “Here!” He quickly shoves the tickets into Leon’s chest, causing him to lose balance for a moment and stumble back, only because he was resting on one foot primarily.

He grabbed the tickets before the could fall on the floor and looked at them with slightly widening eyes. “Dude… what the fuck, I’ve been trying to get these for months, but some dickhead grabbed the last pair.”

...That might have been him, Naegi thought. He had been trying to do this for months. Trying not to feel too bad, he laughed it off and rubbed the back of his neck, feeling his stomach twisting and his instinct to run off again only growing. “Haha, I… I guess I was lucky?”

“No shit dude- there’s two though, there’s no way I can go twice.” He thought for a moment, before handing one back. “Here. Take it.”

“What? I won’t need this.”

“Dude, trust me. I know what you’re doin’. Sure. Meet me outside next weekend, OK? We can go into together and, ya know… rock the fuck out. Dude, trust me, you’re gonna love them.” A playful punch in the shoulder, before Leon turned on his heel and walked away again - for a second, Naegi could see his grin shaking, but he didn’t know if he was just wanting to believe that even the unshakable Leon Kuwata could get flustered sometimes.

 

(love is managing to organise a date without hiding your blushing face)

—

A year since the beginning of Hope’s Peak, and already, Naegi could say that he’d found most of what he was looking for out of life. Sure, he had two years left, but right now was some of the best moments of his life.

 

His love confession was a few weeks after his first date after Leon at the concert, and his response so said confession was more confusion that surprise. It took him some time to acknowledge it happening at all, let alone accepting it, but when he did, it was the first time that Naegi had seen him genuinely happy in all the time that he had known him. And it had happened many times since then. Knowing Leon as a friend made Naegi feel lucky enough, but as a boyfriend? There wasn’t a word in the world to describe the luck he had. Maybe that’s why he was the Lucky Student; maybe that’s what Hope’s Peak should have been studying. ..Actually, on second thought, maybe not. Stalking on a student’s relationship was creepy, not to mention borderline illegal, and he had faith in the headmaster not to let it get to that level of privacy invasion.

 

It was the Sunday, and, as he always did, Leon invited himself over to stay in the house. Naegi’s parents didn’t mind - in fact, Komaru adored Leon’s company, if only for them to have enthusiastic conversations about Maizono and her band, who they were both huge fans of. Naegi never interrupted them; in fact, he almost always got dragged into it, even if he wasn’t totally up to date on the latest music on the pop culture scene. Watching his little sister be happy was a joy in and of itself, but it was moments like these where he sat back and watched Leon’s face, how he smiled and how his eye twinkled talking about how pretty Maizono was on last night TV show performance.

 

(love is watching your partner in their tenderest of moments, close enough to see the wrinkles in their smile)

—

15 SHSL students… and him. All confined in the same room. Trapped in the same school, on their very first day.

 

Through testimonials, he had learned that everyone had had the same experience as him; waking up in a classroom, with security cameras watching them and windows boarded over by giant metal plates, screwed in tight with large irons that made it impossible to believe they were screwed in by an ordinary human being. Then, they all headed for the entrance hall, where the welcoming ceremony was presumably taking place, only to find other students there just as confused as they themselves were. 

 

Most of the introductions were out of the way now, only a few people that Naegi didn’t know the names of… he looked around to try and get a hold of someone, but… everyone seemed to be talking among themselves. Aside from the redhead boy stood in the corner, running a hand through his hair. 

“Uh, excuse me?” Naegi called out as he walked over, causing the boy to look up with a slight start, not initially paying full attention to his surroundings. 

“Shit, ya scared me there, buddy,”

“Yeah, I saw you jumping a little, heh… uh, Makoto Naegi, Lucky Student.” He held out his hand in a polite manner, though all he got in response to it was a light punch, like a poorly executed fistbump. He opened his mouth to object, but the other boy spoke before he could.

“Yeah, I know that much. I was just talkin’ to Maizono-san, she said you two went to school together or somethin’? Lucky bastard.”

“You… like Maizono-san?”

“And you really have to ask me that? Dude, who  _ doesn’t _ like a super cute idol. ‘Sides, gettin’ on her good side could kick my up a few notches early in the music world.”

“Ah, so you’re a musician?”

“Nah. I play baseball.”

“...Baseball?”

“Yeah. Name’s Leon Kuwata, SHSL All Star, apparently.”

 

Somehow, hearing that name made Naegi swallow, and hard. Sudden nerves out of nowhere… he knew that Leon was famous and all, and incredibly good and sports, but this was a different kind of nervousness, one that he felt around Maizono and Enoshima and other pretty girls. Nerves of making a fool out of himself, for a totally different reason that making himself look bad in front of the Japan’s hopefuls of the future.

 

(love is not remembering the name of the man you had loved for two years, but still feeling that same loving spark all over again)

—

It all happened so fast it was hard to process. Now Leon Kuwata, the SHSL All-Star, laid limp from the pole he’d been battered, beaten and bruised against. And Naegi had no idea why he felt his heart in his throat and wanted to vomit as hard as he did. It was almost as if he knew the guy before. He felt like that the moment they’d locked eyes in the entrance hall. They’d met before… and somehow, he knew it wasn’t as friends. He didn’t like that feeling.

 

As they took the elevator up, Naegi tried to forget the chance that maybe, in another time, they could have been together for longer. That Leon could have been alive.

 

(love is not knowing why it hurt so much to witness the death of a helpless stranger)


End file.
